SANTA ANA, Calif. — The ex-wife of a Los Angeles Angels employee at the center of the overdose death of one of the star pitchers testified Monday in a civil trial that she saw players and clubhouse staff handing out pills and alcohol while partying on the team plane.
Camela Kay told jurors in a Southern California courtroom that she had traveled on an Angels team plane with her then-husband Eric Kay, who was convicted of supplying drugs that led to the 2019 death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, and saw players partying, playing cards, gambling and drinking.
“They are treated like royalty,” Camela Kay said of her observations on the plane. “I had seen them handing out pills or drinking alcohol excessively.”
The testimony came in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family, which argued the Angels should be held responsible for allowing a communications director for a drug-addicting and dealing team to stay on the job and gain access to its players.
The Angels have said that team officials were unaware that Skaggs was using drugs and that any drug activity involving him and Kay occurred on their own time and in the privacy of the player’s hotel room.
Camela Kay said she became concerned that her then-husband had a drug problem after noticing his erratic behavior, and family members initiated an intervention with him in 2017.
The next day, she said, two team officials came over to talk to him and one of them retrieved a series of plastic bags containing white pills from the bedroom, raising her concerns that Eric Kay was not only struggling with substance abuse but also selling drugs to make money.
“Because he’s in the clubhouse with the players, I think he’s delivering to them,” she said.
Camela Kay also described how her then-husband was driven home by an Angels employee after dancing shirtless in his office at the stadium in 2019.
When he got home, she found a bottle with blue pills in it and called police to force him to go to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed an overdose with six different drugs, she said.
He was hospitalized for three days and then entered rehab, which was communicated in text messages between Camela Kay and team officials shown to the judges.
She said her sister-in-law told her after visiting Eric at the hospital that he told her the pills were for Skaggs.
She said she found text messages on his phone saying he got his “candy” at the stadium and relayed the information about both to Angels officials.
She said she was concerned about Eric hitting the road with the Angels after a six-week stint in rehab, adding that he was still behaving erratically and she suspected he was abusing a drug meant to treat opioid addiction.
After Skaggs’ death, Camela Kay filed for divorce, according to Orange County court records.
She is expected to testify further on Tuesday.
The trial comes more than six years after Skaggs, then 27, was found dead in the suburban Dallas hotel room where he was staying as the Angels were set to open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers.
According to a coroner’s report, Skaggs choked on his vomit and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.
Eric Kay was convicted in 2022 of providing a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl to Skaggs and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
His federal criminal trial in Texas included testimony from five MLB players who said they received oxycodone from him at various times from 2017 to 2019, the years in which he was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to Angels players.
Skaggs has been a fixture in the Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and has struggled with repeated injuries during that time.
He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Skaggs’ family is seeking $118 million in lost income, compensation for pain and suffering and punitive damages against the team.
After Skaggs’ death, MLB reached a deal with the players’ association to begin testing for opioids and refer those who test positive to the treatment board.
The trial is expected to last weeks and will include testimony from Angels outfielder Mike Trout and team employees.
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